How is modern psychotherapy impacted when it is approached from the presence and understanding of the unconditioned mind? What happens when therapists are able to function as a sacred mirror for their clients' essential nature, reflecting back not only the contents of awarenessùthoughts, feelings and sensationsùbut awareness itself? Informed by their direct experience as well as by nondual teachings from both eastern and western wisdom traditions, the authors take a fresh look at what psychotherapy can be. These seminal essays will (...) challenge and inspire readers to approach psychotherapy in a new wayùas a potential portal for experiencing their deepest nature as free and joyful beings.Seasoned clinicians, Dan Berkow, Stephan Bodian, Dorothy Hunt, Sheila Krystal, Lynn Marie Lumiere, Richard Miller, John Prendergast, John Welwood, Jennifer Welwood and Bryan Wittine, and innovative western spiritual teachers, Adyashanti and Peter Fenner, explore critical issues at the interface of psychology and spirituality from a nondual perspective. (shrink)

We agree with Saunkeah and colleagues that research ethics principles outlined by the Belmont Report—which guide the procedural basis for “human subjects” research in the United States throu...

In many countries consumers have shown an increasing interest to the way in which food products are being produced. This study investigates Chinese consumers’ attitudes towards different pig production systems by means of a conjoint analysis. While there has been a range of studies on Western consumers’ attitudes to various forms of food production, little is known about the level of Chinese consumers’ attitudes. A cross-sectional survey was carried out with 472 participants in 6 Chinese cities. Results indicate that Chinese (...) consumers prefer industrial pig production systems, where traditional pig breeds are raised, over large-scale and small family farms. Farms with maximum attention to food safety, which furthermore can provide lean meat with consistent quality, are also preferred. Imported pig breeds and tasty but variable meat were rejected. A 3-cluster solution found that consumers from cluster 1 focus almost exclusively on the food safety aspect. Consumers from cluster 2 show weak overall attitudes to pig production systems in general. Cluster 3 stands out by being very positive about industrial, large-size farms and consistent quality. From a Chinese consumer’s perspective, the industrial approach seems to represent values such as achievement and evolution, as well as quality and safety, since pig production is moving away from low-cost, low-quality, and low-safety family-scale systems. A complex set of rural and environmental development, quality aspects, and food safety measures are challenges that must be met by the stakeholders of pig production systems in China. (shrink)

Nearly 70 years after the dawn of the genetic age, biotechnology, scientists proclaim, is poised to rewrite the book of life. Yet, how far can science go in making sense of what "life" means to human beings and societies? This book looks at flash points in law, politics, ethics, and culture to argue that the claims of rewriting life are overblown.

'Gender Hurts' examines the wider social and political context and implications of the phenomenon of transgenderism. Jeffreys and Gottschalk propose that gender in western culture is socially constructed as the basis of male domination and that the concept of gender has the potential to hurt many.

In the past twenty years, the field of science and technology studies (S&TS) has made considerable progress toward illuminating the relationship between scientific knowledge and political power. These insights have not yet been synthesized or presented in a form that systematically highlights the connections between S&TS and other social sciences. This timely collection of essays by some of the leading scholars in the field attempts to fill that gap. The book develops the theme of "co-production", showing how scientific knowledge both (...) embeds and is embedded in social identities, institutions, representations and discourses. Accordingly, the authors argue, ways of knowing the world are inseparably linked to the ways in which people seek to organize and control it. Through studies of emerging knowledges, research practices and political institutions, the authors demonstrate that the idiom of co-production importantly extends the vocabulary of the traditional social sciences, offering fresh analytic perspectiveson the nexus of science, power and culture. (shrink)

Almost half of pregnancies in the United States are unintended, despite the availability of highly effective forms of birth control. Women often cite side effects as a reason for stopping hormonal birth control, and most research on the topic comes from a medical perspective. In this study, I analyze hormonal contraceptive side effects from a social perspective that highlights the link between cultural messages about gender and women’s contraceptive behavior. Drawing on data from interviews with 88 women, I argue that (...) the gendered emphasis on women’s appearance and emotionality shapes women’s perceptions about the seriousness of hormonal contraceptive side effects, like weight gain and emotional volatility, and their propensity to stop use as a result. Contrary to understandings of side effects as a purely medical aspect of use, the gender analysis elucidates the ways that particular side effects are imbued with social meaning that can undermine women’s goals to prevent pregnancy. (shrink)

In the nation of Belize, and in particular the south side of Belize City, the main metropolitan area of the nation, significant economic disparities have led to child and adolescent exposure to high rates of violent crime, gang activity, unsafe neighborhoods, sexual, and physical violence. Problems associated with poor Social-Emotional Character Development are especially prevalent among boys. Consequently, valid culture-relevant measures are required that identify problematic behavior for policy-based intervention and evaluation of educational programs designed to ameliorate this problem. The (...) present study demonstrates the application of Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling to existing measures through the investigation of structural validity and generalizability of the Social-Emotional and Character Development Scale with a large sample of children from schools in Belize. Exploratory structural equation modeling results demonstrate the original factor correlations were reduced, providing less biased estimates than confirmatory factor analysis. Moreover, a multi-group Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling analysis illuminates significant differences between latent factor scores of males and females for most factors. Using this newer factor analytic procedure, original factors are reconceptualized to better situate the Social Emotional Character Development Scales into the larger body of Social-Emotional Learning competencies literature. (shrink)

This commentary on K.D. Pimple’s “Six Domains of Research Ethics”, focuses on the area of institutional integrity and looks at “relationships between researchers, their sponsoring institutions, funding agencies, and the government,” considering the implications of institutional demands and support for research, and, in turn, demands and support on research priorities and public education.

Os fãs de K-pop têm chamado a atenção da mídia internacional por conta de seu engajamento em causas políticas e sociais em diversos países. No intuito de investigar a dimensão política do ativismo desses fãs em específico, este artigo se propõe a abordar o impacto global do K-pop, tendo em vista o debate mais abrangente sobre decolonialidade. Para tanto, utilizamos como objeto de análise o recente caso do fã-clube oficial do BTS, conhecido como ARMY, que desafiou os posicionamentos do presidente (...) norte-americano Donald Trump. A partir de uma abordagem decolonial e da concepção de desobediência epistêmica, apontamos que o consumo da cultura pop sul-coreana dispõe de ferramentas que dialogam com a esfera não-ocidental e funciona fora da lógica colonial, especialmente em meio a ascensão global da boyband BTS. (shrink)

This collection of essays by Sheila Jasanoff explores how democratic governments construct public reason, that is, the forms of evidence and argument used in making state decisions accountable to citizens.

An important function of the self is to identify external objects that are potentially personally relevant. We suggest that such objects may be identified through mere ownership. Extant research suggests that encoding information in a self-relevant context enhances memory , thus an experiment was designed to test the impact of ownership on memory performance. Participants either moved or observed the movement of picture cards into two baskets; one of which belonged to self and one which belonged to another participant. A (...) subsequent recognition test revealed that there was a significant memory advantage for objects that were owned by self. Acting on items had no impact on memory. Results are discussed with reference to the importance of self-object associations in cognition. (shrink)

Scholars in science and technology studies (STS) have recently been called upon to advise governments on the design of procedures for public engagement. Any such instrumental function should be carried out consistently with STS’s interpretive and normative obligations as a social science discipline. This article illustrates how such threefold integration can be achieved by reviewing current US participatory politics against a 70-year backdrop of tacit constitutional developments in governing science and technology. Two broad cycles of constitutional adjustment are discerned: the (...) first enlarging the scope of state action as well as public participation, with liberalized rules of access and sympathetic judicial review; the second cutting back on the role of the state, fostering the rise of an academic-industrial complex for technology transfer, and privatizing value debates through increasing delegation to professional ethicists. New rules for public engagement in the United Sates should take account of these historical developments and seek to counteract some of the anti-democratic tendencies observable in recent decades. (shrink)

Topics discussed in this work are abortion, euthanasia, medical negligence and human experimentation.

The system of clinical ethics committees (CECs) in the United Kingdom is based on goodwill. No formal requirements exist as to constitution, membership, range of expertise or the status of their recommendations. Healthcare professionals are not obliged to use CECs where they exist, nor to follow any advice received. In addition, the make-up of CECs suggests that ethics itself may be under-represented. In most cases, there is one member with a training in ethics – the rest are healthcare professionals or (...) administrators, although a lawyer is generally also included in the membership. This begs the question as whether CECs can ‘do ethics’, as well whether or not they can take seriously the requirements of due process, formal justice and human rights. Moreover, the role of the patient in this system is opaque. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Teacher as Public ArtSheila Wright (bio)I entered the public art arena as an idealist optimist. Now, two decades later, I am a pragmatist realist. How did my dream of a populist marketplace turn into a nightmare?—Richard Posner, Artist vs. PublicLike Posner, many faculty members enter the academy as idealists, optimistic that their goals for and the promise of higher education will be fulfilled and their quest for knowledge inspired, (...) only to discover years later that they have become pragmatist realists.1 For many, change is necessary for survival, career success, and fulfilling dreams. At what point, however, might otherwise idealistic, visionary, and highly capable people become oppressed, disillusioned, and/or marginalized as professors? Under what conditions do professional dreams of transforming education and critical pedagogy become frustrated by rigid adherence to the status quo? How might initial aspirations of achieving a higher education become politicized and racialized as seemingly inescapable nightmares?For some faculty—particularly those of color and, especially, women working in historically white institutions—the assault on dreams occurs not only in nightmares during sleep but as monochrome, white-mares while awake.2 So, what does it mean just to be a professor in an environment where the simple quest to teach, conduct research, and serve can be frustrated by faulty, stereotypical, and often hostile assumptions, attitudes, and reactions to gender and skin? How might professors in these circumstances [End Page 83] respond to social constructions that manifest as body politics and racialized consciousness while simultaneously celebrating their identity, inner spirit, and cultural self—their ideals and visions? How do professors in these situations respond to institutional policies and practices and the social, cultural, and political nuances of place? Further, how can professors learn from their experiences and strive for meaningful transformation without the risk of being viewed as an "other," "unorthodox," an "activist," or worse?In this article "teacher as public art" is used as a metaphor to describe and explain the all-too-common perceptions and experiences of professors of color, especially women, within the academy. More specifically, this article reports findings from a qualitative study focused on what it means to be a woman of color in the academy. The findings presented are consistent with those encountered in a growing body of literature on the topic. Like other work in this area, an analysis of historical contexts can provide a critical link to understanding the cultural nuances framing the formation of professors' work identities. Triangulated data for this study included a visual art exhibition, personal reflections on the experiences of teaching in higher education, and formal research involving women faculty of color. Data were analyzed and interpreted based on literature defining the three worlds of professorship (scholarship, teaching, and service). The presentation of results and findings included here is intended to encourage further conversation regarding the retention, promotion, and tenure of faculty of color.Information and PerspectiveHighlighted throughout this discussion are (1) the relevance of locating self within the context of people and place; and (2) the importance of bringing meaning, authenticity, and credibility to teaching and research through continued reflection, self-assessment, and inquiry. The case presented is essentially a first attempt to accomplish these goals using self-study, personal experience, and public knowledge as an integrated vehicle for professional transformation. As both the researcher and a participant, the process required that I be simultaneously subjective and objective in order to examine the multiplicity of dialogues related to the professional self. In other words, the process required that I honor the voice of the person within—for example, artist, professor, woman, person of color—while, as a researcher, at the same time honoring the voices of those who participated in the study. As someone who came late to the academy (I was forty when I received my first tenure-track position), I drew for this study not only upon my prior experience and identity as a professor and educational researcher but also upon a myriad of pre-academy experiences and identities as, for example, an artist, art educator, administrator, and aspiring social reformer. The dynamic relationship [End Page 84] between those various identities facilitated and sustained a more cohesive... (shrink)

Left distributive algebras arise in the study of classical structures such as groups, knots, and braids, as well as more exotic objects like large cardinals. A long-standing open question is whether the set of left divisors of every term in the free left distributive algebra on any number of generators is well-ordered. A conjecture of J. Moody describes a halting condition for descending sequences of left divisors in the free left distributive algebra on an arbitrary number of generators. In this (...) paper we present progress toward an affirmative answer to the open question mentioned above, namely we prove that the many generator form of Moody’s conjecture holds if each member of the free left distributive algebra has a “division form” representation in an expanded algebra. (shrink)

The development of clinical ethic support in the UK arguably brings with it a series of legal questions, which need to be addressed. Most particularly, these concern questions of due process and formal justice, which I argue are central to the provision of appropriate ethical advice. In this article, I will compare the UK position with the more developed system in the USA, which often provides a template for development in the UK. While it is not argued that the provision (...) of clinical ethics support in the UK will necessarily follow the path mapped in the USA, there are lessons that can be learned from the US experience – particularly in terms of attention to process – from which UK clinical ethics support service might well benefit. (shrink)

From Hippocrates to paternalism to autonomy : the new hegemony -- From autonomy to consent -- Consent, autonomy, and the law -- Autonomy at the end of life -- Autonomy and pregnancy -- Autonomy and genetic information -- Autonomy and organ transplantation -- Autonomy, consent, and the law.

Though feminists are correct to note that conventional standards of sexiness are oppressive, we argue that feminism should reclaim sexiness rather than reject it. We argue for an aesthetic and ethical practice of working to shift from conventional attributions of sexiness to respectful attributions, in which embodied sexual subjects are appreciated in their full individual magnificence. We argue that undertaking this practice is an ethical obligation, since it contributes to the full recognition of others’ humanity. We discuss the relationship of (...) ethical to aesthetic considerations and argue that the respectful notion of sexiness is a genuinely aesthetic one, even though it does not involve assessment in relation to standards. (shrink)

From all corners of the globe, the on-line revolution is proclaimed. The imperative is to connect; to shop, work, learn, be governed, even fall in love on-line. Government initiatives proliferate globally, stressing the urgency for citizens to become part of the so called Information Society. In the midst of all this euphoria the question must be raised 'Is this opportunity for all, or just a few?' Information and Communication Technologies are being introduced to the teaching and learning process at an (...) increasing pace. E-government ministers are particularly concerned about the 'have-nets' and 'have-nots' in this 'digital revolution'. Our research in schools and the HE sector, looking at women learning on-line, has indicated barriers. We discuss how gendered relations in the home, work and education go far beyond having access to IT. We illustrate how these relations contribute to the shaping of the gendered experiences of using technology in education. So whilst women are urged to get connected, we ask whether or not they will want to use technology as a tool to learn with. We suggest that the current gendered discourse surrounding technology and its use in all areas of society should inform government on-line learning policies globally, cutting through the euphoric hype. (shrink)

South African writer Phaswane Mpe (1970—2004) is often canonized and memorialized as a brave truth-teller who broke the silence on HIV/AIDS in the context of government silence and denial. And yet Mpe’s writings—including poetry, short stories, a novel, and scholarly criticism—contemplate illness as a problem for truth and representation in works that linger in silence and ambiguity. This article analyses the tension between silence and speech in Mpe’s creative writing in response to HIV/AIDS. Using Mpe’s works as an illustrative example, (...) I trouble the desire to read illness narratives as forms of truth-telling and silence-breaking. The desire for the transparency of speech in a global archive of illness narratives also informs a colonial politics of representation that instrumentalizes literature as ethnographic evidence. Mpe’s writing on HIV/AIDS refuses a demand for authenticity by holding the embodied experience of disease at a slight remove from the reader in order to register the forms of spiritual and epistemological crisis that epidemic and social loss produce. My contention is that the political stakes of this writing lie not in Mpe’s ability to render a public health crisis with verisimilitude, but in the capacity for writing to provide solace and sublimity faced with death. Through an analysis of Mpe’s fiction and poetry, this article proposes a methodology for reading the politics of illness narratives across globalized space which attends to the world-building potential of creative expression as a radical practice that resists incorporative models of aesthetic intelligibility. (shrink)

Genetic testing has become a vehicle through which basic constitutional relationships between citizens and the state are revisited, reaffirmed, or rearticulated. The interplay between the is of genetic knowledge and the ought of government unfolds in the context of diverse imaginaries of the forms of human well-being, freedom, and flourishing that states have a duty to support. This article examines how the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States governed testing for Alzheimer’s disease, and how they diverged in defining potential (...) harms, benefits, and objects of regulation. Comparison before and after the arrival of direct-to-consumer genetic tests reveals differences in national understandings of what it means to protect life and citizenship: in the United Kingdom, ensuring physical wellness through clinical utility; in the United States, protecting both citizens’ physical well-being and freedom to choose through a framework of consumer protection; and in Germany, emphasizing individual flourishing and an unburdened sense of human development that is expressed in genetic testing law and policy as a commitment to the stewardship of personhood. Operating with their own visions of what it means to protect life and citizenship, these three states arrived at settlements that coproduced substantially different bioconstitutional regimes around Alzheimer’s testing. (shrink)

Environmentalists can make individuals more eco-friendly by dispelling many of the myths and misconceptions about the natural world. By learning what in nature is and is not dangerous, and in what contexts the danger is real, individuals can come to aesthetically appreciate seemingly unappreciable nature. Since aesthetic attraction can be an extremely valuable tool for environmentalists, with potentialbeyond that of scientific education, the quest for an eco-friendly is neither unnecessary nor redundant. Rather, an eco-friendly aesthetic ought to be pursued in (...) conjunction with other efforts to protect nature. (shrink)

Individual, family, economic, and other forms of people suffering impact organizations. Suffering in the workplace is probably a more common occurrence than expected in everyday life, and opposite to health and employee wellbeing. According to the World Health Organization, 300 million people worldwide struggle with depression and close to 800.000 people die due to suicide every year. The European Survey on Working Conditions in the European Union gathers the most varied aspects of working conditions, such as the duration of the (...) working day, relationships between collaborators in organizations, or healthy work habits. Among the results of that survey it is noteworthy that almost half of the close to twenty-two thousand workers surveyed in the 27 member countries stated that they felt uneasiness due to the conditions of their work. (shrink)

STS research has devoted relatively little attention to the promotion and reception of science and technology by non-scientific actors and institutions. One consequence is that the relationship of science and technology to political power has tended to remain undertheorized. This article aims to fill that gap by introducing the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries. Through a comparative examination of the development and regulation of nuclear power in the US and South Korea, the article demonstrates the analytic potential of the imaginaries concept. (...) Although nuclear power and nationhood have long been imagined together in both countries, the nature of those imaginations has remained strikingly different. In the US, the state’s central move was to present itself as a responsible regulator of a potentially runaway technology that demands effective containment. In South Korea, the dominant imaginary was of atoms for development which the state not only imported but incorporated into its scientific, technological and political practices. In turn, these disparate imaginaries have underwritten very different responses to a variety of nuclear shocks and challenges, such as Three Mile Island (TMI), Chernobyl, and the spread of the anti-nuclear movement. (shrink)

The power of technology? -- Risk and responsibility? -- The ethical anatomy of disasters? -- Remaking nature? -- Tinkering with humans? -- Information's wild frontiers? -- Whose knowledge, whose property? -- Reclaiming the future? -- The ethics of invention?

The ABC of communism by Nikolai Bukharin and Evgenii Preobrazhenskii was both an exercise in utopian planning and a Left Communist manifesto. As such, Lenin viewed it with some suspicion. Its educational section combined ideological prescription with description of the actual policy of the Soviet People’s Commissariat of Education, as well as elements of polemic with that policy. Preobrazhenskii, its author, would shortly emerge as a major opponent of Narkompros’s core commitments in education, clashing with Nadezhda Krupskaia, Lenin’s wife, and (...) other Narkompros leaders. (shrink)

Are children the passive recipients of influence from their parents and from society? Is their development determined by their genes and their neurons, or do they have the capacity to think about and influence their own lives and the world around them? How does their interaction with their social and material worlds support or hinder agency? Arechildren agents, and what do we mean by agency? Children as Agents in Their Worlds aims to answer these questions through a critical psychological and (...) relational approach, while referencing and critiquing a wide range of perspectives from otherdisciplinesincludingsociology, anthropology and education. Greene and Nixon review the pioneering work of scholars of childhood studies and current post-human theories of agency and offer a developmental perspective on the emergence of the sense ofagency and the exercise of agencyin children. They discuss key themes includingagency in families, agency within the school context and with peers, and children as agents in the wider public sphere. They explore agency and diversity, examining sex, age, genetic inheritance and contextual sources of difference, such as social class and geographical location. Offering a stronger theoretical base for research and policy, through a synthesis of both psychological and relational theories,Children as Agents in Their Worlds will be essential reading for students and professionals in developmental psychology, sociology and anthropology, as well as education, childhood studies, children⁰́₉s rights and related fields. (shrink)